Melos or Pylos?

Naval War College Review, Summer, 2005 by James R. Holmes, Toshi Yoshihara

The advantages of fortifying Pylos were many. From a permanent base in the Peloponnesus, Athenian triremes could range across the peninsula's maritime frontiers. From there the Athenians could foment rebellion among the large population of Spartan helots (slaves), threatening the survival of the Spartan regime. Local allies could "do [the Spartans] the greatest harm from it." (43) Pylos would be a magnet for escaped helots. (44) In short, it would be a permanent irritant to the Spartans, much as the Spartans' periodic invasions of Attica vexed the Athenians. Sparta would find itself, in effect, in the position of modern China with respect to Taiwan: China's Cold War confrontations with the United States over Taiwan stemmed in part from fears that the island might be exploited as a geopolitical springboard from which hostile external forces would seek to interfere in the mainland's internal affairs. This sentiment persists. Indeed, Chinese leaders have long asserted that overt Taiwanese collusion with "foreign forces" (a thinly veiled reference to the United States) would constitute a casus belli comparable to an outright declaration of independence.

As for the Spartans, although they "at first made light of the news" that Demosthenes' troops were building a fort, they quickly grasped the geopolitical significance of a nearby Athenian outpost. (45) The Spartans recalled an invasion force then in Attica after only fifteen days and diverted it toward Pylos by land and by sea, "hoping to capture with ease a work constructed in haste, and held by a feeble garrison" by joint action. (46) The Spartan commander planned to block the two channels into the harbor, using "a line of ships placed close together with their prows turned toward the sea" to turn away the expected Athenian reinforcements. (47) To buttress the Spartan defenses further, a force of some 420 hoplite warriors (heavy infantry in armor) landed on Sphacteria, a long, narrow island that sat athwart the harbor mouth.

   By this means both the island and the continent would be hostile to
   the Athenians, as they would be unable to land on either; and since
   the shore of Pylos itself outside the inlet toward the open sea had
   no harbor, there would be no point that the Athenians could use as
   a base from which to relieve their countrymen. Thus the Spartans
   would in all probability become masters of the place without a sea
   fight or risk, as there had been little preparation for the
   occupation and there was no food [in the Athenian fort]. (48)

Meanwhile, Demosthenes, realizing that a joint Spartan assault was imminent, "was himself not idle." (49) He took charge of the Athenian defenses, paying particular attention to the beaches, the weakest point in the defensive perimeter. The Spartan troops were ultimately unable to establish a beachhead, "owing to the difficulty of the ground," which kept them from landing except in small detachments, as well as to "the unflinching tenacity of the Athenians." "It was a strange reversal of the order of things," observes Thucydides, "for Athenians to be fighting from land ... against Spartans coming from the sea," since Spartans "were chiefly famous at the time as an inland people and superior by land" while Athenians were "a maritime people with a navy that had no equal." (50) China, a traditional continental power with minimal amphibious forces, would do well to bear this Spartan example in mind. (51)